As oil prices steadily rise, many oil and gas experts fear higher prices could stunt economic recovery, not just in the United States but around the globe. From the Financial Times: This week oil climbed to $87 a barrel, its highest level since October 2008 and prompted concerns that triple-digit crude was once again in the offing. This was after a period of eight months when oil traded between $70 and $80, a narrow band that pleased oil producers without hurting consumers too much. The latest surge seems to have …
House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) was quoted in The Hill earlier this week discussing the country’s economic outlook. Despite the President’s recent efforts to talk about savings, Rep. Clyburn took a different tack, saying that “wouldn’t help alleviate the recession.” He added, “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.”
China announced last Friday that its economy grew 8.7% last year. Among other things, this will prompt a chorus of claims that China is leading the world out of recession. Wrong. The typical way of thinking about this is to take China’s and every other country’s GDP growth, add it all up, and see which economy contributed most to the world’s pile. But that is not the way GDP works. Consider the case of a country that successfully dictates trade terms such that it extracts a great deal of wealth …
The budget shortfalls, plunging revenue, and economic woes plaguing near-broke California could foretell the future of other cash-strapped states. A new study by The Pew Center on the States found that the economic pressures that pushed California to the brink of a total economic meltdown are also found in nine other states across the country, all of which could face a financial disaster just like the one in the Golden State. Those states with economic conditions most like California’s include Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and …
With the recession officially beginning in December 2007, some speculated the economic downturn would result in increased crime, especially property crime. Yet, the Department of Justice’s just-released 2008 National Crime Victimization Survey shows violent and property crime did not increase last year. During the first full year of the recession, those crime rates were at or near their lowest levels since creation of Justice’s crime survey in 1973: • The violent crime rate dropped from 20.7 “victimizations” per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2007 to 19.3 incidents last …
“There is no disagreement,” said President Obama, “that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help jump start the economy.” Those chilling words were said in January, but we were reminded of that sentiment yesterday when President Obama claimed that “…economists on both the left and right agree that the last thing a government should do in the middle of a recession is to cut back on spending.” Markets work and there are many companies and entrepreneurs making the best of the current recessionary environment despite …
There’s not been a lot of good news for, or about, the British armed forces recently. When the Economist asked, in its Jan. 29, 2009 issue, if the Army was losing its way, the story’s lead summed up their answer: “The British army suffers from lack of soldiers, lack of money and lack of conviction.” And that was putting an optimistic spin on things: in reality, the situation was a good deal worse than the Economist allowed. There’s no reason to be happy about the recession. But you know what …
“So my whole goal over the next four years,” President Barack Obama said Monday night at the end of his first prime-time White House news conference, “is to make sure that whatever arguments are persuasive and backed up by evidence and facts and proof, that they can work, that we are pulling people together around that kind of pragmatic agenda.” The question, the last of 13 President Obama fielded, had to do with the future of bipartisanship after the “stimulus” fight — and how he intends to work with Republicans …
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” Sound like, oh, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio or some other exasperated Republican stalwart lamenting proposals to spend our way out of the recession? Listen again: “I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.” Sound more like a liberal Democrat pushing job creation — say, Harlem’s …
The Heritage Foundation has long argued that tax cuts, not tax hikes, are the best policy, especially when the economy is weak. Turns out Barack Obama agrees with us. Watch the video yourself, but here is a rough transcript of Obama’s exchange with George Stephanopoulos from This Week: STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if we are in a recession next January when you come into office, you’ll still go through with your tax increases? OBAMA: No, no, no, no, no. What I’ve said George is even if we are still in recession I …
